


keep your feet on the ground

by arbitrarily



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Boxing & Fisticuffs, Episode Tag, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/pseuds/arbitrarily
Summary: Omie passes on a well-earned lesson: you're no good to anybody if you don't know how to take a hit.
Relationships: Lemuel Cannon/Omie Sparkman
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	keep your feet on the ground

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently my way of engaging with this season of _Fargo_ (and, uh, the stresses of modern 2020 life) is to just go unhinged on every single non-canonical pairing with a few seconds of screen time to feed my appetite. So here we are, set specifically after episode 4x05 "The Birthplace of Civilization," and namely the night the Cannon Limited spent in jail, but before episode 4x06 "Camp Elegance."
> 
> Oh, and needless to say, I am very much so not a boxer.

It was Leon who came to him. Wanted help without the indignity of asking for it. Typical. If such help pertained to anyone but the boss’s son, Omie might’ve had a different response. Instead what he said was, “Yeah, sure. Bring him by. Whenever.”

Leon took him literal. The next morning, Omie came by the gym to find Loy’s eldest son waiting for him.

“Lemuel,” he nodded. He glanced past him, across the street to where Leon was sitting behind the wheel, watching them both. He nodded to him, too.

“Hey.” Lemuel closed the book he’d had his nose buried in a moment ago, surprised by Omie’s arrival. Readiness was clearly gonna have to be one of the first things he drilled the boy on.

Omie waved a hand loosely towards the door, and Lemuel stepped off from the wall of the Pee Wee Boxing Gym, followed Omie inside. He kicked off the dirty snow before it could start to melt.

“How’s that head?”

The kid still had one hell of a goose egg puffed up at the crown of his head. Like he said, he’d got his bell rung but good.

Lemuel shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“No dizzies? No more puking?”

He looked at Omie like it was Omie who’d crossed a line or it was Lemuel considering crossing it with something too smart by half. Instead all he said was, “Nope.”

“Alright. What’d your mama have to say about all that?”

Lemuel almost laughed. “Nothing good.”

“I’ll bet.”

Omie nodded towards the bench by the lockers. Both of them were still bundled up against the Kansas City cold. “Go ahead, get yourself ready then.” Omie took off his own coat, stripped down to his white undershirt and slacks. Taped up his hands out of habit more so than concern he’d be needing it. He wasn’t courting his own death, not at the hands of Loy Cannon on account of his boy earning himself another shiner.

Little Cannon didn't wanna be here, that much was clear. Omie didn't take it personal. He knew enough of Boss’s son, seen enough of him, to know Lemuel had no love for this racket. He wanted the easy life his daddy had carved out and made possible for him but he didn't want to be in it, dirty hands. Not neck-deep like the rest of them.

Lemuel stood up from the bench, dressed in a striped t-shirt tight enough it might’ve been Satchel’s. The kid was skinny, but no matter—so was Omie at the start. Still was, lean muscle grafted onto limber bone, a long reach and a narrow torso.

“You never took a hit like that before?”

Lemuel shook his head. He was gonna need to lose the specs, if he planned to take another. “No, sir.”

Omie made a surprised noise that passed for a laugh, more or less. “You known me how long, and you trotting that out on me, shit.” He shook his head, amused. “None of that, not with me. Where you think you are, putting on airs like that?” He gestured to the empty gym around them. It stunk of sweat and leather and bleach. It was an old and dingy place and Omie had never loved anywhere better. He remembered when Loy first took him here. It was after his final fight, when it all went bad. Cannon never bet on the fights himself, but Omie knew plenty of men who had lost their shirts when he went down. No point in worrying about their lighter pockets; Omie had lost even more than them.

He watched as Lemuel took off his glasses without prompting. He folded them and placed them down carefully with his jacket and his bag. There was something annoyingly heartbreaking in it, watching the boy be so precise with his things. Not a boy, Omie reminded himself. Well, college boy, maybe.

“Get over here then. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

Lemuel came over towards Omie like he was thinking maybe he was gonna get himself shot, dread obvious in each step forward. He stopped still a distance shy of Omie, outside of arm’s reach. Omie looked him up and down, saw what he was working with. It was funny, looking at him without the glasses on. He really did look nothing like his father.

“Now, boxing, y’know, it's as much about offense as it is defense.” Lemuel had a bored, indulgent look on his face that Omie knew well, having used it a fair share in his own life by default. He tried to think of his way in, what would interest the boy. “Jazz,” he said, like some kind of peace offering. Lemuel’s frown deepened. “You gotta know when and how you’re gonna jump in with your own melody—that's the feel, yeah? Same thing in here.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“Okay, kid, it’s nothing like that. Get over here,” he said again.

At the least, he obeyed that.

Omie held up the roll of tape. Didn't say anything more. Somebody had left the radio on in the back office. Some Burl Ives holly jolly bullshit drifted and echoed through the gym. He took Lemuel’s hand in his own. Lemuel’s fingers twitched, cold to the touch, but he let him. The kid had soft hands. Hands that didn’t know work, not real work, maybe only the cold, and barely at that. It confirmed something he had long suspected—Loy was too gentle with the boy. How the hell was he supposed to fill those shoes when the inevitable occurred? But maybe that was what Omie was supposed to be doing here, help prepare him for the rough.

Omie wrapped one hand and then the other, murmured instructions as he worked the second hand. Lemuel didn't say anything. Omie wondered what was going on in the boy’s head. How he saw the direction of things going for him. It was war now. Had been since the Mick Jew and the skeleton had pulled up alongside the kid and Bittle. Shot out the windows, nothing serious, nothing more serious than an attempt on the Cannon heir. Calamita shoulda died for it, but Omie knew how to follow an order. Fuck him up a little, don’t be the one to fire the first shot. Omie eyed Lemuel’s face as he finished with his hand. He thought, not for the first time, that maybe it was Cannon himself who should be in here with him, in the ring. Learn how to throw that first punch and reap the whirlwind that followed. Never did anything for a man to only ever react. And Omie could see the pattern: that was all they’d been doing. What the fuck did it get them—Lemuel’s little brother stuck with the Pope’s goons and Doctor Senator dead. Christ.

“Show me how you make a fist,” he said. Lemuel curled his fingers. “That’s, alright. No. Lemme.”

Omie’s hands were bigger than Lemuel’s and enveloped his easily. He worked his fingers, tucked the thumb, felt the contrast between the tape and smooth skin against the palm of his hand. “Better.”

He took an appraising step back from him.

“First thing’s first, gotta get your stance right. Go on, get your feet shoulder-width apart. Bend those knees some. Not that much. There. Got a little bounce, some give there? Good. You a righty? Okay then, take a step back, with your right foot. Little further. Now turn your foot out some, your right foot—what you want’s your left toe in line with your right heel. Yeah, like that.”

Omie came back over to him. “This right here?” He gave a small shove at Lemuel’s shoulder. He more or less held his ground, swayed a little. “This is gonna give you balance.” Without thinking it through, he set his hands on Lemuel’s hips, squaring them off. The kid was bony; the cut of his hips fit neatly in his hands. Lemuel was both very tense and very still. “You’re gonna throw from here, when you punch. You use the hips, you maintain your balance.”

He gripped his hips a little tighter, a brief squeeze, before he took a step back. Omie considered him, everything about him amateur and reluctant, out of his element.

“Tuck your chin,” Omie said. “Get those hands up. Right behind left, yeah. There you are. Now, you see? Smaller target. Makes you harder to hit. Gets you ready to hit back.” Omie came forward, towards him, fast, threw a sharp uppercut, feinted before it made contact. Lemuel cringed back, but he kept his hands up, his feet where Omie had set them as if they’d grown roots. Omie grinned, as cutting and quick as his fist.

“There you are,” he said again. “This your home base, kid. You start here, you come back here.”

But Lemuel stood there, taut as all hell, like he had every muscle clenched. Omie let himself laugh, a low, rolling chuckle. “Relax, come on. I ain’t gonna hit you. Relax. Breathe.”

The kid even breathed wrong.

“Gonna have to fix that, too,” Omie mumbled to himself. To Lemuel, he said, louder, “You breathe different with that horn? I don’t know nothing about trombones or tubas or what-have-you—”

“Trumpet.”

“Sure. You breathe different though, don’t you? That being my point. Same goes in here. You sucking air through an open mouth, your chin gets hit—boy, you better pray you don’t got yourself a glass jaw.” He pointed at Lemuel. “You’re gonna inhale before you punch. Exhale on the throw. Like this.”

He showed him. As natural as the breathing itself to sink down into his stance. He threw a few punches, quick jabs, his breath hissing fast through his closed mouth. He threw in a right cross, maybe just to show off some, fuck it.

“Now you.”

He watched him. He tried, he could give him that. But Lemuel still wasn’t throwing from the hips. His mouth was still parted open as he breathed.

“Nuh-uh,” Omie said. He came over to him, from behind. Stood at his back and settled his hands on his hips again. He felt it, the second he touched him—everything in Lemuel went tight. Anticipatory. That was good. That was real good. You needed the edge. You needed that bitter flood of adrenaline. Omie was close enough his chest nearly brushed against the back of Lemuel’s t-shirt. He could feel the fast rise and fall of his chest as Lemuel breathed, breathed like he’d made him run ‘round the block for the last hour. “Easy,” he said, quiet and low. He didn’t think Lemuel was afraid. He didn’t want to think any further through that line of thought, reach a conclusion that was only gonna make things messy. “From the hips,” he said. “Keep that mouth closed.” Sleigh bells jingled on the radio, cut through the close quiet. “Try again.”

Lemuel did, half-hearted jabs, but his breath was good. He paused suddenly, turned over his shoulder to look at Omie, his arms drooping. “This really necessary?” Petulant; anyone else Omie might’ve called it bratty. But there was heat to it, and heat was good.

It was in that moment Omie realized he still had his hands on him, the two of them near enough to an embrace. He dropped his hands, too. Didn’t move back though.

“You practice with that horn, don’t you?”

“‘course I do.”

“Alright then. You know the fundamental principle.” Omie took a wide step away, began to pace a slow semicircle around Lemuel. “Ain’t no man any good at anything without some practice first. Now, get those fists up for me. Show me again.”

There was more power behind his efforts now, whether out of spite or actual motivation—Omie didn’t care which. He continued to pace around Lemuel, same as he might’ve danced on his toes in the ring, sizing up an opponent. No, he decided. “Keep those feet planted. Come on, now.” Nothing adversarial to be found in this. He was helping him, was all. Nothing more to be found in it than that.

“I know Leon sent you here, hoping I’d teach you to slip and duck, but I never seen a point in only knowing how to run from a fight. And I know boss didn’t raise any coward.”

Lemuel's expression changed. Darkened. His body went slack and his arms fell limp at his sides. He stood up straight. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

"I know it.” Omie crossed his arms over his chest.”It’s my job, protecting you. Protecting your daddy. Your family. I gotta keep the wolves at the door. And I feel a hell of a lot better about it if I know you can handle yourself, push comes to shove.”

Under the gym’s poor lighting, Lemuel looked older now, more than his years. Tired, like a heavy weight sat on his shoulders and had for some time. You got no say about the world you were brought into. Everybody knew that. Omie supposed he never bothered to consider that even the blessed carried their burdens, too.

“Tell you what,” Omie said. “We go for a few rounds, then we wind down, get a couple beers, chase just as many skirts. What d'you say?”

Lemuel grimaced, though, interestingly, only at the last of his suggestions. Omie couldn’t help but hear Opal’s voice in his head, knowing and damning back in that jail cell. Omie wasn’t dumb as all that though, dumb as Leon. You laid low. What Leon didn’t get, still, was that you didn’t punch above your weight. Not unless you knew for damn certain you were ready for anything thrown back at you. You did what you could, to stay out of reach of your enemies. The Faddas. The law. Ready for anything, one step ahead if you could manage it.

“You really don’t—”

“Yeah, but I am, ain’t I? And you’re accepting.” He paused, settled his hands on his own hips. “Now remember what I told you. Move from the hips. Fists up. Ready for anything.”

Lemuel settled back into the stance Omie had taught him. Better. He lifted his eyes over the taped curl of his knuckles and met Omie’s. “I’m ready,” he said.


End file.
